They had expected Torsten would hit the bull’s eye, but not the sizeable arc the bolt first described through the air, nor that it would hit the target so forcefully that it disappeared from view.

‘When you hit the fox, make sure you’re standing higher up, so the bolt doesn’t strike one of the beaters when it tears through the fox’s body, because unless you hit the shoulder blades, it will. And it would probably be best not to, since it won’t die from the wound; it’ll just keep running.’

He gave them a slip of paper.

‘Here’s a link online to directions on assembling and using the crossbow. I recommend you watch all the videos very thoroughly.’

Ditlev glanced at the link:

http://www.excaliburcrossbow.com/demo/listings.php?category-id=47.

‘Why?’ he then asked.

‘Because you two are going to win the draw.’

23

Carl returned to the basement to find a single height-adjustable table assembled on wobbly legs. Next to it he found Rose on her knees, cursing at a screwdriver. Nice rump, he thought, stepping over her without a word.

He cast a sidelong glance at the table, and saw with foreboding at least twenty yellow notes in Assad’s characteristic block letters. Five of them were messages saying that Marcus Jacobsen had called. He crumpled those up immediately. The rest he gathered in a sticky mass and shoved in his back pocket.

He peeked into Assad’s little cubbyhole of an office and discovered the prayer rug on the floor and the chair empty.

‘Where is he?’ he asked Rose.

She didn’t bother to respond. Simply pointed behind Carl’s back.

He looked into his own office and saw Assad sitting with his legs planted on the paper forest on his desk, reading eagerly and appearing lost in thought, his head bobbing in rhythm to the buzzing music of indefinable origin streaming from his headphones. A steaming glass of tea sat in the centre of a stack of papers that Carl had labelled ‘Category 1: Cases without perpetrators’. It all looked very cosy and organized.

‘What the hell are you doing, Assad?’ he barked. So brusquely that the man jerked like a marionette, sending file pages floating silently through the air and splashing tea all over the desk.

Assad threw himself across the desk in a flurry, using his sleeves like a tea towel. Not until Carl put a reassuring hand on Assad’s shoulder did his look of surprise disappear, replaced by his usual, mischievous grin that implied he was sorry but couldn’t help it and besides he had exciting news to share. Only then did he remove his headphones.

‘Yes, I’m sorry I’m sitting here, Carl. But inside my office I heard her all the time then.’

He motioned with a thumb towards the corridor, where Rose’s oaths created as constant a flow of noise as that of all the interesting substances flushing through the basement’s sanitation pipes.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be helping her assemble the tables, Assad?’

Assad put a shushing finger to his full lips. ‘She wants to do it herself. I did try.’

‘Come in here a moment, Rose!’ Carl shouted, dumping the most tea-soaked stack of papers on the floor in the corner.

She stood herself before them with a hateful stare and such a savage grip on the screwdriver that her knuckles showed white.

‘You get ten minutes to make room for your two chairs in here, Rose,’ he said. ‘Assad, you help her unpack them.’

They sat before him like two school kids with eager faces. The chairs were OK, though he wouldn’t have chosen green metal legs. Those, too, he would probably have to get used to.

He told them about his discovery at the house in Ordrup and put the open metal box on the table before them.

Rose seemed disinterested, but Assad’s eyes looked as though they were about to pop out of his skull.

‘If we find fingerprints on the Trivial Pursuit cards that match one or both of the victims in Rørvig, then I’d stake everything on the other effects also having fingerprints of others who’ve been subjected to similar violent experiences,’ he said, waiting a moment until they appeared to understand what he’d just said.

Carl lined up the little teddy bear and the six plastic pockets. Handkerchief, watch, earring, rubber band and two cards, each in individual pockets.

‘Oh, how cute,’ Rose said, eyes fastened on the teddy bear. Typical, thought Carl.

‘Do you two see the most remarkable thing about these pockets?’ he asked.

‘There are two plastic pockets with Trivial Pursuit cards in them,’ Rose said, without hesitation. So she was present after all. He could have sworn she wasn’t.

‘Exactly. Excellent Rose. And that means … ?’

‘Well, logically it means then that each pocket kind of represents a person and not an event,’ Assad said. ‘Otherwise the Trivial Pursuit cards would have been put in the same plastic thingy, right? The Rørvig murders had two victims. So two plastic pockets.’ He spread out his hands in a broad, panoramic sweep. Just like his smile. ‘That is, one plastic pocket to each person then.’

‘Precisely,’ Carl said. Assad was a guy one could count on.

Rose put her palms together and slowly raised them to her mouth. Recognition or shock, or both. Only she knew.

‘So, are you saying we might be looking at six murders?’ she asked.

Carl pounded his desk. ‘Six murders. Bingo!’ he cried. Now they were all on the same page.

Rose stared again at the cute little teddy bear. Somehow she couldn’t make it fit with everything else. Nor was it easy to do.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This little guy here most likely has his own significance, since it’s not displayed like all the other effects.’

They all stared at it for a moment.

‘We don’t know, of course, whether all the effects are related to a murder, but it’s a possibility.’ He extended his hand across the table. ‘Assad, give me Johan Jacobsen’s list. It’s hanging on the board behind you.’

He put it on the table so they both could see it, and pointed at the twenty events that Jacobsen had listed.

‘It’s far from certain that these cases have anything to do with the Rørvig murders. In fact, there might not even be any connection between these, either. But if we explore these cases systematically, maybe we’ll find just one among them that we can connect to just one of these effects, and that’s enough. We’re looking for one more crime the gang could be connected to. If we find it, we’re on the right track. What do you say, Rose, are you the one who’s going to take on this assignment, or what?’

She let her hands drop and suddenly didn’t look too friendly. ‘You give off incredibly mixed signals, Carl. One moment we’re not allowed to talk, the next we’re in full swing. Then I’m supposed to assemble tables, and suddenly I’m not. What am I supposed to think? What will you say in ten minutes?’

‘Hey, wait. There’s something you’ve misunderstood, Rose. You will assemble the tables. You’re the one who ordered them.’

‘It’s really too bad that two men make me do it all by myself –’

At this Assad interrupted. ‘Oh, I wanted to, sure, did I not say it?’

But Rose went on. ‘Carl, do you have any idea how much it hurts, wrestling with all those metal table legs? There’s always some kind of problem with them.’

‘You ordered them, and they’ll be standing in the corridor tomorrow. All put together! We’re having guests from Norway. Have you forgotten?’

She cocked her head back as though he had bad breath. ‘Here we go again. Guests from Norway?’ She looked around. ‘How are we going to have guests from Norway? This place looks like a junkshop. And Assad’s office would shock anyone.’